Renzo Piano Building Workshop has designed a light-filled neuroscience research facility at Columbia University's new campus in Upper Manhattan.
Photo is by Eileen Barroso
The Jerome L Greene Science Center is the first building to complete on the university's Manhattanville campus, located a few blocks north of its historic Morningside Heights in Harlem.
Piano worked with SOM to masterplan the wider site ? a former industrial area sandwiched between two elevated transport arteries.
Photo is by Frank Oudeman
He has also designed several buildings for the campus, including this 450,000-square-foot (41,800-square-metre) research centre that will house the Mortimer B Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.
Steel beams and bracing exposed on the exterior reference the huge supports for the rail line to the east and raised Riverside Drive highway to the west, which separates the site from the Hudson River. Photo is by Frank Oudeman
The majority of the building is encased by double-skin glass walls, designed to keep out the noise of subway trains that pass just metres away but to bathe the internal spaces in light.
"I'm suspicious about metaphors," said Piano. "But if it is a palace, it is a palace of light."
Photo is by Nic Lehou
The architect, whose other projects in the city include the Whitney Museum and the 565 Broome tower, also described the centre as "a factory exploring the secret of the mind".

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